“Sally Donovan?”
I lowered my phone.
The officer standing outside my ER treatment bay looked from my face to the temporary bandage against my forehead.
Behind him, another officer had already opened a notebook.
“Yes.”
“We received a report of an assault.
Can we speak with you?”
For the first time since the glass struck me, my stomach tightened.
Not because I regretted leaving.
Because this was the point where family stories usually changed.
At dinner, everyone had seen my father throw the glass.
But I knew exactly how quickly that could become Harold accidentally knocked over a glass, Sally startled, Sally overreacted, Sally was emotional, Sally misunderstood.
My mother had rewritten smaller things for years.
This time, I had no intention of helping her.
“Yes,” I said.
“Please come in.”
The first officer pulled the curtain closed enough to give us privacy.
He asked whether I needed more medical attention before talking.
I told him the staff had already examined me and that I could answer questions.
Then he started at the beginning.
I told him about Bethany’s financial problems.
I told him about my parents deciding that my house was the solution.
I explained that I owned the house, paid the mortgage, lived there alone, and had repeatedly said no to Bethany and her family moving in.
“Was there an argument tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Who started it?”
I thought about that.
“My parents brought up the house again.
They wanted me to agree tonight.”
“And you refused?”
“Yes.”
“Then what happened?”
I looked at the faint red stain on the cuff of my blouse.
“My father threw his wine glass at me.”
The officer’s pen stopped for half a second.
“At you?”
“At me.
It hit the side of my forehead and broke.”
“Did he say anything immediately before or after?”
I repeated what I could remember.
My mother’s accusation that I was selfish.
The comments about my empty bedrooms.
My father’s anger.
My mother’s warning not to make it dramatic after she saw me bleeding.
I did not embellish.
I did not need to.
The facts were ugly enough on their own.
The officer asked who else had been present.
“My sister Bethany.
Her husband Kenneth.
My niece Madison came into the doorway during the argument.
Her younger brother was upstairs.”
His expression changed slightly when I mentioned Madison.
“How old is she?”
“Nine.”
“She saw the glass being thrown?”
